Kauto 'fine' after easy win as bookmakers and Betfair take fright

The bad news for Britain's bookmakers is that Kauto Star remains in robust good health following his bloodless victory in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown on Saturday. "He's absolutely fine, he's come out of it well," said his trainer Paul Nicholls yesterday.

While this amounts to glad tidings for the six-year-old's new-found legion of fans, it is probably not what the High Street layers were hoping to hear. A little stiffness, perhaps, or some loss of appetite would have been welcome - offers of 4-6 for the King George, still some three weeks off, are an indication of how little they relish the idea of taking him on again.

Nor are the bookmakers alone in fretting over their liabilities. Betfair, the betting exchange, do not normally have to worry about who wins, since they make their profit from a small commission on successful bets, but Kauto Star could cost them £1m. That's the bonus they offer to connections of any horse who can win their Betfair Chase, the King George and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in one season.

Having hosed up in the Haydock race last month, Kauto Star is now the well-backed favourite for the remaining legs of that hat-trick. Ladbrokes offer just 7-2 about him winning both and Betfair are thinking about hedging.

"It looks like the horse is on a different planet to everything else at the moment," said their spokesman, Tony Calvin, yesterday. "Monet's Garden and Racing Demon look like the only serious opposition in the King George and, to be honest, if it stands up, it wins."

But hedging is not a straightforward matter for Betfair, whose relations with the bookmakers are extremely poor and for whom a large ante-post double would in any case be a questionable call in PR terms. And, as Calvin points out, "if Kauto Star wins the King George in a canter, I can't see many people taking a £600,000 bet at 6-4. If we were to hedge, I imagine it would be on our site."

Betfair should have no excuses for underestimating Kauto Star, since they recently acquired the respected ratings organisation Timeform, whose managing director, Jim McGrath, yesterday outlined the extent to which the horse now dominates the chasing scene. "Kauto Star is comfortably top-rated by Timeform at the three distances he has competed at this season and connections look to have an exceptional horse," he said.

"On Saturday, he only had to run to a rating of 169 to win as he did, although we have him top-rated over two miles at 184. As an indication of his superiority over that distance, the Champion Chase winner, Newmill, is on a mark of 165.

"Over three miles, Kauto Star is also rated 184, with current Gold Cup holder War Of Attrition on 171. Over two and a half miles, Kauto Star is rated 176, the mark he achieved at Aintree, 8lbs clear of next best Racing Demon on 168."

Kauto Star's versatility has led one firm to quote him at just 4-5 for the two-mile Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, but the Gold Cup seems a much more likely target. With Betfair's £1m in mind, success in the King George would surely end such speculation. Nicholls yesterday said that the Champion Chase would be an option "if it comes up a bog."

The trainer was impatient with suggestions that his charge had yet to prove his stamina for the Gold Cup trip of three and a quarter miles. "Everyone talks about Cheltenham being stiff but, when it's good ground, it's not as stiff a test of stamina as everyone thinks," he said. "On good ground, the stayers can quite often get outpaced and left behind."

You say Kay-toe, I say...

Kauto Star is widely acknowledged as the best chaser in training but the sport has yet to achieve a consensus as to how his name is pronounced. Owner Clive Smith says 'Kor-toe', trainer Paul Nicholls and staff at his Somerset yard prefer 'Kay-toe', while staff at his first stable in France opted for 'Koe-toe'. The Observer's revelation yesterday that the name is Norse and should be said 'Kow-toe' seems unlikely to resolve matters.